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Restrict access in Moodle

Restrictions allow teachers to link access to an activity, course section or work material in the Moodle course to certain conditions. Students must fulfil these conditions before they can gain access to the blocked course content.

Restrictions that can be selected in Moodle
Restrictions that can be selected in Moodle
  • Completion of a previous activity. The locked course content is only unlocked once a specific activity has been marked as completed.
  • A specific date, optionally with a fixed time. The blocked course content is not available before this time.
  • An assessment or a specified grade that must be achieved in a previous activity. The locked course content is only released once the required number of points has been achieved.
  • Group membership. Students must belong to a specific group in order to gain access to the blocked course content.

See image “Restrictions that can be selected in Moodle”

Note: The Activity completion access restriction is only available if completion tracking is enabled in the corresponding course room. In addition, at least one course activity must have enabled completion tracking. You can find further information on this in our FAQ article Completion tracking in Moodle .

Activating Restrict access

Access restrictions can be activated for all work materials and activities within a Moodle course room. They can also be set for entire course sections. As soon as you create a restriction, the selected course content will only be visible to students if they fulfil the set restrictions.

To create a new restriction, you must first activate edit mode by clicking on the Switch on edit button at the top of the course room. Now navigate to the activity whose availability you would like to restrict. Then click on the Edit settings sub-item in the Edit drop-down menu to the right of the selected course activity. This will take you to the activity settings.

Scroll down to the Restrict access sub-item and click to open it. You can now select the Add restriction button (see figure “Add restriction”).

Add restriction
Add restriction

Clicking on this button will then take you to the overview page of the selectable restrictions. Here you can now select the desired restriction and then configure it as required. Further restrictions can be created using the Add restriction button.

You can then return to the course room via the Save and return to course button.

Note on multiple restrictions

Please note that when creating multiple access restrictions, you must choose whether the students must fulfil all the restrictions set (AND condition) or whether it is sufficient if at least one restriction (OR condition) is fulfilled, see the “Configuring restrictions” screen.

Visibility

There is also an eye symbol in front of each newly created restriction. If the eye is open, students who do not fulfil the respective restriction will see the activity highlighted in grey in the course room. The Restrictions that they must fulfil in order to unlock the blocked activity are also displayed. You can deactivate this setting by clicking on the eye. The eye symbol then appears crossed out. In this case, students who do not fulfil the set restrictions will not see the blocked activity in the course room. If more than one restriction is defined for an activity, the closed eye will “win” in case of doubt.

Configure restrictions
Configure restrictions

Examples of use

You can find more examples of Restrict access in Moodle in the Moodle Docs.